Mary Stuart at the Almeida is the perfect play for these Wolf Hall and The Crown-obsessed times December 21, 2016 The British pop-culture landscape is dominated by kings and queens, from Henry VIII in Wolf Hall to Elizabeth II in The Crown, so the time is ripe for a revival of this lyrical tale of political intrigue and regicide. Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams are Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, with a coin-toss deciding which [...]
Silence review: Martin Scorsese’s newest release is a misty, religious masterpiece that’ll haunt you for days December 21, 2016 Birdsong fills a black screen at the start of Silence, thousands of tiny wings beating ever louder, obscuring our vision. This assault on the senses is a fitting start to Martin Scorsese’s new film, which examines in painstaking detail to what degree external forces can shatter a person’s spirit. The action centres around Andrew Garfield’s [...]
Assassin’s Creed review: Confusing garbage even fans won’t forgive December 21, 2016 I am a cool and popular dude, so I have played pretty much all of the Assassin’s Creed games. From the first one, in which you play a man who runs around on rooftops stabbing popes, to the most recent one, in which you play a man who runs around on rooftops stabbing French aristocrats. [...]
Passengers review: In space no one can hear you be a massive creep December 21, 2016 A contender for one of the most misleading trailers of the year, Passengers is not so much about Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence tootling about the cosmos on a broken ship. Rather, it’s about one man’s selfish decision to doom a woman he fancies by prematurely yanking her out of her hyperspace sleeping pod for [...]
Why you should serve a magnum on Christmas day December 21, 2016 Yes, Yes, Christmas is a time for giving. But it is also a time for a decent glass of wine or two and sharing them with friends and family. One of the greatest pleasures in collecting and appreciating wine is choosing the wines that will work just right with the occasion and the planned menu [...]
Christmas with JPMorgan: the bank picks books, sites and music for the holiday season December 16, 2016 There's still time to get a last minute gift for the banker in your life! JPMorgan's annual holiday reading list has been given an upgrade for 2016, and to mark the 10-year anniversary of the reading list, the US bank added on a few cultural and musical recommendations. The bank is actually calling the list #nextlist2017, and [...]
Star Wars: Rogue One review: A brilliantly gutsy, spectacular spinoff that could have been braver December 15, 2016 While it may not feature Jedis doing backflips or the Millennium Falcon tooling about space, Rogue One: A Star Wars story definitely feels like a Star Wars film. It has a heartbreaking family-based plot, a familiar struggle between the Empire (baddies) and the Rebellion (goodies, kind of) and all manner of weirdo aliens. There's even [...]
Government blocks sale of rare Wedgwood vase December 15, 2016 The culture minister has blocked a rare Josiah Wedgwood vase from leaving the country. The “Basaltes” vase was sold in July to an unnamed bidder for almost half a million pounds. However, it is hoped that an alternative buyer from the UK can raise an equivalent amount of £482,500 (plus £16,500 VAT) in order to [...]
Dreamgirls review: Glee star Amber Riley yells the house down in the first Dreamgirls production to come to London December 15, 2016 This is the first time Dreamgirls has been performed in the West End, and it’s a production that’s sure to echo down the years, purely for the diabolical racket it kicks up. The mics might have been turned up to 11 – not necessary in the tiny Savoy Theatre – but the primary source is [...]
Love at the National Theatre: an important play about welfare in Britain that’s appropriately unenjoyable December 14, 2016 Love, at the National Theatre, is not the poverty porn that so often clutters the London stage, but a powerful indictment of the shocking state of social housing, social care, and social welfare in Britain today. Writer-director Alexander Zeldin presents a group of disparate people forced to live side-by-side in emergency housing, and the grinding [...]